Crises, décisions et temporalités : Autour des bifurcations biographiques

Abstract

The trajectories of entry into adulthood are cluttered with events, periods of crisis, life crossroads to which young people have to face up, to make choices and sometimes operate radical changes in the course of their lives. In these moments of crisis, upheavals and unexpected turning points, new stakes and logics of orientation appear, which would have remained unseen in a quieter course of things. Working from a qualitative longitudinal survey of a panel of young people, this paper offers an attempt to explore the notion of bifurcation. The life stories and the arguments these young people developed allow to identify the components of choice-making. Various structural, topical, relational and individual registers have been identified, along with various interacting temporalities. It is their conjunction that is likely to make possible a breaking up of the expected social order.